Greg Ambrosius wrote: ↑Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:22 pm
We are now opening the DCs in February and we know the Kicker position is a crapshoot in May and June, so it will really be a crapshoot before then. Team Kicker should make it easier to draft a DC team in February, March and April.
But more importantly, to back up this position you need at least 3 and maybe 4 potential kickers in the DCs if you draft early. Guess how many Kickers were drafted last year? Any idea?
FIFTY-FOUR!!!!!
That's two full rounds of drafting Kickers. In fact, during Rounds 28 to 35, there were 34 different Kickers being drafted. Only 20 kickers have an ADP in the first 27 rounds, so if this is such an important position, WHY AREN'T PEOPLE DRAFTING THEM EARLIER?
This isn't a skilled finish to the DC, it's a CRAPSHOOT to back up ONE POSITION. With Team Kicker and with staying at 35 rounds, we could have 22 more skill-position players being drafted in Rounds 28-35. Isn't that good for the game?
If I didn't know better Greg, all of your arguments here sure sound an awful lot like the ones I've made in the past to just
get rid of kickers.
That said... your "FIFTY-FOUR" note above made me realize that what I posted yesterday started with the
Player Stats:
https://playnffc.sportshubtech.com/foru ... 1&p=223556
But it only showed the 40 kickers who actually scored points this year. But obviously, that doesn't tell the whole story because there were a dozen more kickers who
didn't score - which is exactly the point I believe you're making.
CAUTION: Lots of numbers forthcoming here. But I'm really trying to take an objective look at this. So please bear with me.
So I started over, this time with all 52 kickers who were drafted in
all DCs throughout the year (I believe your 54 was from
all drafts?). Then I added the same ADP breakdown columns for "Thru Apr", "May-Jun", and "Jul-Sep". Then I looked up their points scored. So whereas the first chart I posted was from the
Actual perspective, this one is from the
ADP.
In the May-Jun Diff column, I highlighted in bold-faced blue any player whose "May-Jun" difference (between that ADP and his Actual points rank) was greater than 2 (positive or negative) away from his "Thru Apr" difference. So for example, Jake Elliott's "Thru Apr" ADP Difference from his actual Pts Rank was 11 because that ADP was 5, but he finished 16th. Then his "May-Jun" ADP Difference was down to 8 because that ADP was 8 (and his finish was still 16th). The difference between the two ADP Diffs = 3, so it's highlighted. I applied the same blue bold-facing to the Jul-Sep column to show when the difference jumped by 3 or more from the May-Jun values. If you count the number of times a player's ADP minus ActualRank moved by 3+ from "Thru Apr" to "May-Jun", you'll see 18 instances. But look at the same comparison between "May-Jun" to "Jul-Sep"... there are 21! So we see that, as the summer progresses, we were already used to some wild ADP swings. And it doesn't really look like we'll necessarily see anything wilder than that once we're drafting a lot of DCs in Feb-Apr. That may be due to the likelihood that we won't necessarily see many kickers cut in the Spring; instead, most of the cuts will probably occur in training camp and late summer.
At the bottom of the Diff columns, I showed the AVG of all differences. At first glance, it seems to support your point that we'd be even less accurate in picking the right kickers through April (8.67) than we would in May-Jun (8.09). However, these numbers may look closer than they really are due to two huge outliers: Forbath and Tavecchio - both of whose ADPs moved massively downward once they lost their jobs. Again, this is probably the point you're making. But if you remove these two outliers, then the AVG of the "Thru Apr" Diff = 7.77 and the AVG of the "May-Jun" Diff = 7.68, which is remarkably similar. I don't know who the owners were that drafted Forbath 130 times and Tavecchio 85 times, but I managed to avoid both due to their lack of security; through more than 40 best ball drafts, I had just one share of Tavecchio and zero of Forbath. And I'll bet some of the seasoned DC vets had very little exposure to these guys also.
Like others, I'm confused who was asking for Team Kickers. Right or wrong, my preference would be NO kickers. And it seems like most of those posting here would prefer the usual individually-drafted kickers. But Team Kickers?
Here are some undesirable examples of how Team Kicker would've fared this season:
- I had 14% exposure to Cairo Santos (kicker ADP rank low 30s) when he was on NYJ. He got cut in August. So I would've undeservingly fallen into the #2 kicker in Jason Myers instead of being stuck with Santos' #31 finish.
- Dan Bailey was drafted most of the summer as K11 (then K17 toward season open), largely because he had a good history and was on DAL. Anyone who drafted him would've undeservingly fallen into the #7 kicker, Brett Maher, instead of Bailey's #22 finish.
Who was more entitled to Myers' and Maher's #2 and #7 finishes - the owners who drafted Santos and Bailey (and may have never even heard of Myers/Maher) or the ones who researched fringe kickers and took a shot at those guys landing somewhere they could produce? Yes, the Myers/Maher owners would've cashed in bigtime on their late-round flier picks; but isn't there always that chance every year at
ALL positions (not just kicker)?
In conclusion, like many others have already said, I'm finding it hard to substantiate that the Team Kicker approach was needed based on the assumption that we'd see an increase in ADP vs. Actual volatility when drafting in Feb-Apr. We already see similar movement every year as we get closer to the season. And why take a position that is already largely influenced by luck and make it even luckier (like in my NYJ/DAL examples above)?
https://od.lk/s/OThfMTMzMzQ1NTRf/Kicker ... ly-Sep.pdf